[Sichr]

This reminds me Juan Atzapoalco for whatever reason...

[FastJack]

This reminds me Juan Atzapoalco for whatever reason...

He'd have the "Skin-Floater" metamagic.

[CanRay]

On "The Other Forum", we had a discussion on "Who would win a fistfight" going on.  Rules were that at least one person involved had to have never been stated before.

I proposed Peg (Argent's Decker) and Juan Atzapoalco. 

[Dr. Meatgrinder]

"...this background count also impairs her own actions if the character is Awakened" (RC, 116).

If it were aspected toward the character, you'd see a lot more PC magicians running around SURGEd with the 15 BP "negative" quality that gave a friendly +4 BC.

Yes.  It's negative for PCs, because PCs don't get to play twisted traditions.  A BC domain of pain, hate, and other negative feelings will never be good for a PC... Unless he uses Geomancy to switch it up.. but that's... anyway.

I'm the GM.  I get to make baddies who are powered by murderthoughts.  Ergo, crazy skinwalker baddie. 

And that's fine...according to one of my favorite movies, "Story trumps rules."

But "negative" means a negative effect for the person having the quality.  A player might argue that his own Astral Hazing should be aspected toward himself since he lives in it all the time.  The quality, as written, does not vary by tradition, even those most twisted.

[Chaemera]

Sounds like a good reason to house-rule this metamagic, and maybe push to get it errata'd to better fit the intended flavor.

How about, instead of astral hazing, an Astral Perception check (opposed by Skin Walker's Magic + Initiation, or Threshold of Initiation, I don't know, play with it, see what works) to notice the "bad juju", but not specifically the cause of it. As written, this is part of what assensing is for (spotting things that are metaphysically "wrong"), and it fits with the intention of Skin Walker (sneaky, with a hint of wrong-ness because you just consumed someone, killed them, and bathed in their blood) a lot better than the Astral Hazing does.

Of course, it might be that idea behind the Astral Hazing was to encourage / force the Skin Walker to avoid confrontation (his own magic being so thoroughly hindered) or drop his disguise if he wanted to get seriously violent. But, then again, he can't optionally drop it by a strict reading of the power.

But, there are still better ways to get a +5 bonus on your disguise checks than ritual murder, the real advantage of this metamagic is the mimicked aura (by my reading, much better than what you can do with Masking), and Astral Hazing really puts a damper on that, regardless of how you rule Astral Perception of it (automatically detected / detected if perceived / automatically detected when entered).

[Netzgeist]

"...this background count also impairs her own actions if the character is Awakened" (RC, 116).

If it were aspected toward the character, you'd see a lot more PC magicians running around SURGEd with the 15 BP "negative" quality that gave a friendly +4 BC.

Yes.  It's negative for PCs, because PCs don't get to play twisted traditions.  A BC domain of pain, hate, and other negative feelings will never be good for a PC... Unless he uses Geomancy to switch it up.. but that's... anyway.

I'm the GM.  I get to make baddies who are powered by murderthoughts.  Ergo, crazy skinwalker baddie. 

And that's fine...according to one of my favorite movies, "Story trumps rules."

But "negative" means a negative effect for the person having the quality.  A player might argue that his own Astral Hazing should be aspected toward himself since he lives in it all the time.  The quality, as written, does not vary by tradition, even those most twisted.

I don't have the books with me right now, but I believe the description of Astral Hazing says something like the aura of the person affected by it feeds on his negative emotions, or something like that. That said, as a GM, I doubt I would accept a player arguing the way you say.